In July, Hillingdon’s Director of Community Safety & Enforcement, Richard Webb, told the Residents’ Services Select Committee that Pay & Display machines were under review and that proposals would need to be developed. Those proposals have now been published.
A report dated 22 September 2026 to the Cabinet Member for Residents’ Services, Cllr Wayne Bridges, asks him to approve a public consultation on five changes to parking across the borough – and ticket machines are only one of them.
Cllr Eddie Lavery, Cabinet Member for Finance, is also consulted. Cllr Bridges can sign off the decision from Wednesday 30th September, and Cabinet will make the final decision in December once the consultation has finished.
The five proposals are:
- the resident discount, including the free half hour for Hillingdon First Card holders, to be available through Pay by Phone only, and no longer at ticket machines
- every driver to give their registration number when paying for parking, at machines as well as by phone
- a digital replacement for the Hillingdon First Card for resident parking rates
- fewer Pay & Display machines, with a principle for deciding which ones go
- Sunday charges at council car parks in Hayes town centre that are currently free on Sundays
Why £160,000 of parking savings matters to a council borrowing £150 million
Hillingdon is relying on £150 million of Exceptional Financial Support. That isn’t free money from central government: it’s permission to borrow against our future, which residents will be paying back, with interest, through their council tax for the next twenty years. In July the government issued the council with a Best Value Notice (not a good thing, at all).
A scathing independent CIPFA review published publicly in July by gov.uk (but not Hillingdon Council) found “no political will” to take the hard choices officers had drawn up, from fortnightly bin collections to reviewing the libraries and theatres. How the Council plans to deal with the problems remains unclear – to CIPFA, the government, and residents.
With the council’s finances in that state, every saving counts. That includes the £95,000 a year from “changes to parking payment options”, for two years running, and £65,000 a year from ending multiple free Hillingdon First Card sessions, both in January’s budget. Together, £160,000 a year.
The report says consulting has no direct financial implications, and that any savings will be worked out afterwards. But both were in the budget before the consultation even began.
£160,000 is around 0.1% of what the council is borrowing. It won’t come close to “fixing” anything. This alone could be a small, technical saving falling on residents without smartphones, while the decisions on CIPFA’s list – bins, libraries, theatres, council tax – remain untouched. Is this what Cllr Banerjee meant by “managerial avoidance presented as financial prudence”?
Hillingdon First Card free parking to be Pay by Phone only, and no longer available at the machines
This is the change most likely to affect Ruislip residents day to day. At the moment, Hillingdon First Card holders can get their free 30 minutes, and the resident rate after that, either by putting their card into a Pay & Display machine or through Pay by Phone. The council wants it to be Pay by Phone only.
The report blames “misuse” of the free 30 minutes at machines, which it says has affected how often spaces become free. That’s the back-to-back free sessions Mr Webb described in July as an “abuse of the system”, which he said would be stopped. The report now says the machines can’t manage this effectively.
HillingdonFirst cards are now eligible for only one free 30-minute period, new this year
The £65,000 a year in the budget was supposed to come from ending those back-to-back sessions. Moving free parking onto Pay by Phone, where every session is tied to a number plate, looks like how the council now plans to collect the extra income.
There’s a technical reason too. The council’s supplier has told it the machines can’t easily take registration numbers and check Hillingdon First Card eligibility at the same time. So once registration numbers become compulsory, the cards will stop working in the machines.
That means a resident without a smartphone who wants their free half hour on the High Street will have to ring Pay by Phone and give their registration, or pay the non-resident rate at the machine – unless they can find a nearby shop.
Number plates on every parking ticket, and more cameras watching our car parks
Pay by Phone already asks for your registration. Pay & Display machines don’t, and the tickets don’t show it. The council says that means a ticket with time left on it can be passed on to someone else, and requiring a number plate for every session would stop that. The Council doesn’t say how much revenue it thinks it loses through this transfer of tickets.
The council also wants it for enforcement. With every session linked to a vehicle, it could use more automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras in car parks and on-street, and send fewer Civil Enforcement Officers out on foot. There’s nothing yet on where cameras would go.
Enforcement is a priority for the new administration. When South Ruislip councillor Steve Tuckwell became Leader in May, he created a Cabinet portfolio for Community, Environment & Enforcement, held by Cllr Adam Bennett, to lead the council’s enforcement work.
Control over parking itself stays with Cllr Bridges in Residents’ Services, which is why this report goes to him for a decision. More cameras and a number plate behind every parking session would suit a leadership that has made enforcement one of its priorities.
The machines are often out of order and payment is by phone anyway, already
Which Pay & Display machines will go, and what counts as a “nearby” shop?
The report confirms what Mr Webb told the committee in July. The machines are apparently expensive to run, more people pay by phone, and the council wants fewer of them, potentially moving to phone-only payment in some areas “where justified”.
The principle it wants to consult on is that machines will be reduced or removed where there’s another way to pay by cash or card that isn’t a phone or an app, such as a nearby shop. We expect this to be PayPoint.
If the council means what the words say, it’s better than we feared. The alternative has to be cash or card and not by phone or app, which points to a shop. Phoning wouldn’t count, so where there’s no shop nearby, the machine should stay. That ought to mean the Lido keeps its machines, and Kingsend South too, given how far it is from any PayPoint shop. The Beck Theatre, the council’s phone-only trial, would struggle to pass the council’s own test.
Which reading is right decides whether this principle protects any machines or none.
The report doesn’t say how many machines will go, which ones, or how near “nearby” is. Without a list it’s hard to comment on what this means for our own high streets, so we hope the consultation includes one.
Hillingdon First card – just as many people had to replace theirs this month for the new ‘My Account’ – are they about to go digital?
A digital Hillingdon First Card, to stop people who moved away years ago still parking for free
In July we pointed out that Hillingdon First Cards never expire, and that plenty of people who moved away years ago still use them for free parking, with no apparent plan to deal with it. There is one now: the council is developing a digital alternative to the card for resident parking discounts, partly so it can take the benefit away from anyone who moves out of the area.
There are no details yet on what form it will take, whether you’ll need a smartphone, or when it will arrive.
Sunday charges for Hayes – so why is Ruislip still free?
The fifth proposal is Sunday charging at council car parks in Hayes town centre, which charge Monday to Saturday but are free on Sundays. The council points out that Uxbridge town centre car parks already charge on Sundays, as does Botwell Green Leisure Centre in Hayes. It says it wants the same policy across the main town centres and transport hubs. Prices would be set later.
But Hayes isn’t the only place with free Sunday parking. St Martin’s Approach in Ruislip is free on Sundays too, although it’s already due to lose spaces to the council’s own housing plans, and some will be out of use during the archaeological dig. The Ruislip Woods car parks, including Bayhurst Wood and Mad Bess Wood (both part of the Ruislip Woods National Nature Reserve and SSSI), are free to everyone, all the time. Neither gets a mention in the report.
We’re the Ruislip Residents’ Association, so we’re not about to campaign for charges at St Martin’s. But we’re for fairness too. A council borrowing £150 million to stay afloat should be able to explain why any of its car parks are free. And if Hayes has to pay on Sundays, it needs to explain why Ruislip doesn’t.
Paying for parking without a smartphone? The equality assessment comes after the consultation closes
The report accepts that the council has to consider the impact on older and disabled residents in particular, and says an Equality Impact Assessment should be prepared. But the timetable has that assessment being written in the week of 23rd November, after the consultation closes. Almost every proposal here pushes people towards a smartphone, yet residents will be asked for their views without seeing the council’s own assessment of who will be worst affected.
St Martin’s Approach carpark – charges are free on Sundays, but the spaces are full
What happens next: a 21-day consultation and a Cabinet decision in December
- From 30th September: Cllr Bridges can approve the consultation
- By the week of 26th October: consultation launches, with a notice in the London Gazette and Uxbridge Gazette on Wednesday 28th October
- Week of 16th November: consultation closes after 21 days
- 17th December: Cabinet decision
Have your say, now that petitioning the council has been made harder
The consultation isn’t open yet, and at just 21 days it won’t be open for long. We’ll share the link as soon as it launches.
Since July, the council has also made it harder to petition: it raised the borough-wide threshold from 100 to 500 signatures and scrapped automatic public hearings with Cabinet Members. So the consultation may be the best chance residents get to be heard on this.
In the meantime, the report has gone to all members of the Residents’ Services Select Committee, chaired by Ruislip councillor Peter Smallwood.
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